I found a workaround.  When using a font changing program, only "MessageFont" needs to be Segoe in order for GNUBG to work properly (I hope).

This is mostly Microsoft’s fault.  They need to document that normally DPI should only be adjusted when using a monitor connected to a laptop.  When Windows 7 is initially installed, the correct DPI should automatically be set.  But if it’s on a laptop the fonts will be too small for many.  If so you should adjust the DPI while viewing via the monitor, but if you don’t reset the DPI when using the laptop screen, you’re asking for trouble if you have modest screen resolution.

Leaving DPI at the default value, the problem of small fonts can be eliminated by choosing a different one and optionally specifying bold.  With Windows 7’s default theme, set the font type to Verdana, Lucida or Tahoma and use size 10 for 768 vertical resolution.  With a higher resolution screen you can either go larger or set DPI to something more than 96.  Make sure you save the new "theme". 

Note that Windows may often switch back to the default theme.  If so, just use Control Panel/Personalization to reselect your new theme.  Microsoft claims that this is due to some badly-written software that fails to retain the current theme settings.  Curiously, Bing is thought to be the primary culprit!

P.S.  The "instability" I mentioned below was mainly due to a few flaky USB ports.  Their problems were aggravated when using a wireless mouse.  The processor still hangs up periodically when GNUBG is idle, but I've learned to live with it.

Yes, I'm stuck with the business standard of 1024 * 768.  The odd thing is that this is the identical resolution as with my old XP machine and when you use XP text size (Control Panel/Display/Medium) everything looks and behaves normally for a minute or two before things break down completely (all buttons cease to function and the game record starts to look flaky).

I'm curious if others can recreate this.  After resetting my display to Small text, I've run GNUBG twice on my new machine (Lenovo T430) and both times it's become wildly unstable after a few hours with the software not understanding the cursor position (among other things).  In both cases I had IE8 open and was viewing only bgonline.org (typical in my XP days).  IE became even more unstable but in similar ways.   

For now I will avoid using IE8 and see if I can recreate the instability with only GNUBG running (and see if a Medium text setting will work with no other apps running).  If that works, I'll stop using IE8 (another business standard, unfortunately).

GNUBG only works when you use the smallest display settings in Windows 7 (and probably Windows 8).  Ideally it should work when you choose a medium or large setting under Control Panel/Display.  If it's too difficult to make it work with all settings, the medium setting is a fine compromise.

It looks OK initially, but fails very quickly if the size is not set to the smallest (default) value.